Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) said it will now alert its users if it "strongly suspects" their accounts have been targeted by state-sponsored actors. The Internet giant becomes the latest tech company to say it will alert users of state-sponsored attacks, showing the increasing focus of companies on cyber security.
Yahoo's Chief Information Security Officer Bob Lord said the company will provide specific notifications to enable targeted users to take steps to protect their accounts and devices from sophisticated attacks.
However, Yahoo stressed that just because users are notified of a potential state-sponsored attack, it does not necessarily mean the account has been compromised.
Rather, it means that Yahoo strongly suspects that the user has been the target of an attack and the company wants the user to take steps to secure his online presence. The warnings will also not mean that Yahoo's internal systems have been compromised in any way.
On receiving a notification, users must immediately turn on Account Key or Two-Step Verification to approve or deny sign-in notifications as well as choose a strong account password not used by them before.
Further, the user must update the account recovery information and check mail forwarding and reply-to settings. The user must also review recent activity in account sessions for settings not recognized by them.
Yahoo advised users not fall to phishing attacks, install anti-virus software on their computers and also secure their accounts with other companies.
Yahoo thus joins Google, Facebook and Twitter to issue warnings about state-sponsored cyber attacks. While Google introduced the alert system back in 2012, Facebook said in early October this year that it will warn its users about potential state-sponsored cyber attacks.
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